Jeff Van Gundy was a graduate assistant, "a young J.V. coach at McQuaid Jesuit in Rochester," when Pitino met and hired him. Despite some misgivings about his diminutive size and droopy bloodhound eyes, the coach liked his apparent hunger for knowledge. "We would always meet early in the morning and Jeff would be caught sleeping on my couch in my office.... He wanted to be the first one in, so he wouldn't even go home."

Pitino, who offers keys to success in his new book 'The One Day Contract,' told Men's Journal exactly what he's looking for when he gauges potential on and off the court.